Ridicule seldom helps
Bashir Ahmad Dar
Black sheep is a common idiom we all use when we intend to disown an individual for his/her misdeeds and repulsive behavior. The term can trace its origin from the occasional black sheep which are born in a folk of white sheep.
The fleece of the black sheep is considered as undesirable and unwanted since it cannot acquire any new colour while the wool is processed using different colours. However, in our day to day life the idiom, “Black sheep” has come to represent the unpleasant behavior of member of a family or community.
A similitude of the idiom ‘black sheep’ is ‘bad egg’- another idiom which is more often used to express our hate and dislike for a person who is famous among the different strata of people for all wrong reasons. So we can say that ‘black sheep’ and ‘bad egg’ are synonymous of each other.
“Real men don’t make mistakes” is a myth. We are humans, the progeny of Adam (AS) and not angles, so we are bound to make mistakes out of our human nature. Even our forefather, the first man on planet Earth, and the first prophet of Allah, Hadrat Adam (AS) was deceived by Satan into approaching the forbidden tree and eat of its fruit causing Him(AS) and His better half , the blessed mother of mankind Hadrat Hawa (AS), Eve, to descend from Heaven to Earth.
So making mistake is normal for us human beings. I am a firm believer of the proverb, “To err is human” but I am also a staunch support of the rest part of the proverb which says, “to forgive is divine.” The One out of many inferences which we derive from the story of Adam (AS) and Eve (AS) in Quran is that man should always be forgiving as it is human nature to commit mistakes. God, the most merciful, has forgiven our forefather and is forgiving us for our uncountable sins so we should forgive our fellow beings being HIS faithful slaves. Allah is Satar and loves among his slaves the one who hides the faults of others.
But what shocks me hard is the way people start distancing themselves from the people for their little mistakes and call them by different humiliating terms instead of owing them and trying to build their character for a positive change.
Even the blood relatives proclaim disowning a person for his/her mistake and brags of no ties with the mistake maker in future which is terribly terrifying. There is no act more wrenching than publicly scolding a person by his kins, abuse and taunt him/her and call him/her a black sheep of their race and yelping hoards of insult on him/her. So many criminals are born this way. It incites ones heart with the feeling of revenge.
Publicly naming and shaming of individuals, even if done with the pure intention to reduce the undesirable behavior in so called black sheep, can often cause more bad than good to the recipients. They may run risk of developing a negative concept of their self. It affects their psyche badly, makes them nervous, irritated and short tempered. They feel pushed to the extremes, deserted and forlorn.
They sans to make a companion save their loneliness and silence since they feel rejected and dejected. They roam as strangers in the land of their birth and feel panicky abandoned, unvisited, unwanted, unsought, uncared and uncomforted. They suffer an identity crisis and severe spiritual hunger overtakes their self esteem. Hoarding humiliation has a powerful potential to plunge an individual into a state of severe depression, anxiety and can give birth to unpleasant suicidal feelings in an individual.
Dear readers, we should not belittle or hate others characters and deny them their right to existence. It is point of no dispute or argument that every human being secures a right to grow strong and beautiful and full of wondrous delights. We should refrain from labeling anyone as a black sheep as it is peevish and sulky.
So called black sheep too are our fellow beings and we owe them a moral obligation to assist them in molding their behavior. If there smells anything wrong in a person we should talk to him in private, understand his position and convince him with love and tenderness to mend his ways. Shaming publicly is no option. We should empathize with him, understand him and his pain own him and help him out of the testing situations.
(The author is a teacher by profession working in education zone Vailoo and can be reached at darbashir1234321@gmail.com)
